On 14 October 1943 the 8th USAAF carried out the most successful of 16 attacks on the Schweinfurt ball-bearing works but caused only a temporary setback to production and, because the bombers had fighter escort only part of the way, losses were again heavy. Former president Herbert Hoover, who had done much to alleviate the hunger of European children during World War I, wrote:[33]. Between 1.5 and 2 million are said to have died in the process, depending on source. The massive expansion of ship building stretched British shipbuilding capacity including its Canadian yards to the limit. It stipulated that 1.3 billion DM was to be paid to Poles who, during Nazi occupation, had paid into the German social security system but received no pension. Italian and Swiss press reports also stated that many leading Italians banked large sums in Swiss francs in banks in Switzerland. They declare that the united Germany, too, will abide by these commitments. But by far the biggest prize was France. The Soviet Union occupied East Germany and East Berlin. On October 3, 1990, the two sides were officially reunified. Life was particularly harsh in Poland. The US travel agencies were eventually closed down along with the German consulates and information centres on 16 June 1941. The signatories agreed to postpone additional German debts until a final peace treaty with Germany would be made. Another, the "Watussi", was sighted off the Cape by the South African Air Force and the crew immediately set her on fire, trusting the aircrew to bring aid to the passengers and crew. Later Britain signed the Anglo-Swiss Trade Deal, and negotiations for war trade agreements were also concluded with Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark. [59], For the Nazis, the capture of the Russian landmass, one-sixth of the Earth's land surface or 8,000,000 square miles (21,000,000km2), not only provided the Lebensraum they demanded, but also provided the answer to all their raw material problems. Later, high-ranking Nazi officials withdrew their deposits from German banks and transferred large sums to Swiss banks and to the Swedish Consulate at Karlsruhe. [1][2] The country's cities were severely damaged from heavy bombing in the closing chapters of the war and agricultural production was only 35% of what it was before the war. [citation needed] Despite their declared neutrality, the politically unstable Balkan nations found themselves in an uncomfortable position, surrounded by Germany to the North, Italy to the West and Soviet Union to the East, with little room to refuse German veiled threats that, unless they continued to supply what was requested, they would suffer the same fate as Poland. By this time, attacks on German fuel installations had been so successful that September's output was 8% that of April, and supplies were soon exhausted, just when fighter production reached its highest level. West Germany developed a capitalist economy and a better way of life since it was occupied by the Allied forces. [35] The German government takes the same position. Several high-ranking officials followed their chancellor's lead and committed suicide, while others attempted to flee. [41], With increasing numbers of heavy Lancaster, Stirling and Halifax bombers, which could travel long distances and carry a heavy bomb load, reaching squadrons, Allied leaders increasingly put their faith in the cumulative effect of strategic bombing, but decided at the Casablanca Conference in early 1943 that, as with the British Blitz, the early attempts to disrupt the morale of the German people by saturation bombing of cities had achieved the opposite effect. The airlift allowed the Allies to support West Berlin with food and other goods via airplanes for over a year. By mid-1947, the success of denazification and the start of the Cold War had led to a re-consideration of policy, as the Germans were seen as possible allies in the contest, and it was becoming clear that the economic recovery of Europe was dependent on the reactivation of German industry. The Allies exacted reparations for World War II, too. The Allied powers did not want Germany to have to possibility of waging another war. [40] Operation Felix failed to materialise. A large force, known as the Dover Patrol patrolled at one end of the North Sea while another, the Tenth Cruiser Squadron waited at the other. In a bitter school we soon learnt differently. Although the commandos displayed exceptional courage and the expedition was essentially successful in that a number of ships were damaged, only 2 men survived, including the leader, Major Herbert Hasler, who had to make their way across 80 miles of France, Spain and Gibraltar back to safety. America also provided significant support, but while Alaska, only 50 miles (80km) from Asia across the Bering Strait was the obvious route for transporting Lend-Lease equipment, it was remote from Contiguous United States. However, after East Germany's neighbors like Czechoslovakia and Hungary began opening their borders to the West, East Germans flocked to their neighbors to permanently resettle in West Germany. [26] All neutral traffic from the Baltic Sea was to pass through the Kiel Canal for inspection, but with a fraction of the naval forces of their enemies, the action was more in defiance, but it was destined to have a big impact on neutral Scandinavian shipping, who among other materials supplied Britain with large quantities of wood pulp for explosive cellulose and newsprint. [15][16][17] Similarly the (relatively limited) railway electrification was also dismantled with the notable exception of most of the Berlin S-Bahn which retained its third rail infrastructure for the most part. At the Potsdam Conference, the leaders of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Unionthe "Big Three" powers who had defeated Nazi Germanymet in the city of Potsdam . [32] Chamberlain said that although he realised this would be detrimental to the neutrals, (Norway got nearly all its coal from Germany) the policy was in strict adherence to the rules of law and that whereas Germany's use of mines and submarine warfare had already caused many innocent deaths regardless of nationality, no loss of life had been caused by the exercise of British sea power. Because Britain and France together controlled 15 of the 20 refuelling points along the main shipping routes, they were able to threaten those who refused to comply, by the withdrawal of their bunker fuel control facilities. Apart from allowing Hitler to secure his eastern borders and annihilate Poland, the Nazi-Soviet Pact brought Germany considerable economic benefits in August 1939. In turn, Portugal imposed a complete embargo on all tungsten exports to both sides, leaving Germany with only its small supply from Spain, while the Allies had alternative sources in the Far East and South America. These losses included 112 British and 12 French vessels, but also demonstrated the disproportionate rate of loss by neutral nations. The Proclaimed List a US equivalent to the British Statutory List was compiled and, under British direction, the United States Commercial Corporation was formed to begin making preclusive purchases of strategic materials such as chromium, nickel and manganese to supply future Allied needs and to prevent them from reaching the Germans.[63]. German industry was now unable to keep up with the high number of "Top Priority" weapons programmes, such as the production of the V weapons and calls for 3,000 Me 262 jet fighters and bombers per month. If part or all the cargo was found suspect the ship was directed to a more convenient port where the cargo was made a ward of the Prize Court by the Admiralty Marshall who held it until the Court sat to decide the outcome, which could include returning it to the captain or confirming its confiscation to be sold at a later time and the proceeds placed into a prize fund for distribution among the fleet after the war. Half of German synthetic oil production came from plants in the Ruhr, areas that were highly vulnerable to area attacks, and they became the primary target of Bomber Command from 1943.[16]. The United States, France and Britain maintained control of West Germany. [1][pageneeded], The blockade had four distinct phases:[1][failed verification], At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the United Kingdom used its powerful navy and its geographical location to dictate the movement of the world's commercial shipping. Poland, the country most harshly treated, had suffered the confiscation of all state properties, all central stocks of textiles, food and livestock. Minutes of Ministry of Economic Warfare Committee report, 1940, UK National Archives. At the same time the wireless cabin was sealed so no signals could be sent out while the ship was in the controlled zone. As Soviet troops conducted a prolonged siege of Berlin in the first few months of 1945, Adolf Hitler, Germany's chancellor-cum-dictator and the orchestrator of the murder of six million Jews during the war, committed suicide in his bunker. 9,000 factories and 60,000 commercial enterprises were taken over for exploitation, and 80% of the 1942 harvest was sent to Germany. The Germans also gained the occupied country's natural resources and industrial capacity. [44] On September 14, 2022, the Sejm passed (418 for, 4 against, 15 abstentions) a resolution stating that: "The Polish state has never renounced its claims against the German state; the Sejm of the Republic of Poland calls on the German government to assume political, historical, legal, and financial responsibility for all the effects caused by the unleashing of World War II. by zig-zagging or navigating without lights. [13] Later the Western Allies softened their stance in favour of the Marshall Plan, while Eastern Germany continued to deliver industrial goods and raw materials to the Soviet Union until 1953.[14]. Spanish companies did important aircraft work for the Germans, Spanish merchants furnished Germany with industrial diamonds and platinum,[65] and General Franco, still loyal to Hitler because of his support during the civil war, continued to supply Germany with war materials, among them mercury and tungsten. Great efforts went into finishing the new battleships King George V and Prince of Wales before the Bismarck could be completed and begin attacking Allied convoys, while the French also strained to complete similarly advanced battleships, the Richelieu and the Jean Bart by the autumn of 1940 to meet the Mediterranean threat of two Italian battleships nearing completion. Also, the report noted that according to the minutes of the Council of Ministers of 19 August 1953, the renunciation concerned only the German Democratic Republic not the Federal Republic, and that no diplomatic note was ever sent to the East German government officially informing it of Poland's decision. The Deutsche Mark became the German currency, replacing the currency of the occupation. [73] A Norwegian smelting works was also destroyed by British and Norwegian commandos on 21 November 1943. German memories of the Versailles Treaty and of the turbulent years of reparations, food shortages and high inflation during the years immediately after World War I caused wealthy France to be treated as a vast material resource to be bled dry, and her entire economy was geared towards meeting Germany's needs. Despite attempts to transport it away before capture, occupied nations' gold reserves were also looted, along with huge numbers of artworks, many of which have never been recovered. Overview of the reconstruction of Germany, Wirtschaft und Statistik October 1956, Journal published by Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland. Much of the arable land had been ruined by opening the dikes during the Nazi invasion and many farmers refused to sell the Germans cattle, but soon there was such a meat shortage that the authorities had to confiscate bootlegged dog-meat sausages. It took away the German. This was the first "area raid", but photography after the raid showed that most of the 300 bombers had missed the target, and that Bomber Command lacked the means of carrying out precision raids. Once this settlement had been realized and Western and Soviet troops had taken control of their respective zones, the rebuilding of Germany began with its further dismantling. Eucken helped establish the new German currency, argued for large tax cuts, and oversaw the removal of price controls. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. In 1942 the RAF dropped 37,000 tons of bombs on German targets, probably three times the weight dropped on Britain in 1940 and early 1941. "[45], On 2 October 2022, the Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau signed a diplomatic note asking the German government to undertake an official negotiation process between Poland and Germany, and on 3 October presented the diplomatic note to the visiting German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. He commented; At present their plight is lamentable and will become much worse. Together they attempted to persuade the remaining neutrals Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Switzerland, Ireland (and Argentina) that by supplying Germany with the materials it needed they were prolonging the war, and over time a number of measures were tried to pressure these countries into reducing or ending trade with the Axis, with varying degrees of success. Germany sits in the heart of Europe, and many of the industrial raw materials she can't supply herself can be imported from her European neighbors. The reconstruction of Germany was a long process of rebuilding Germany after the destruction endured during World War II. Learn why and how Germany was divided after WWII. The long-awaited Lancaster bomber was at last being delivered to squadrons, along with the new navigational aid GEE. In February 1945, they met at the Yalta Conference in the Soviet Union and decided the final partitioning and division of Germany. There were 16m French Americans alone, and by early March at least 15 different organizations collectively known as the Coordinating Council for French Relief were distributing aid in France through The American Friends Service Committee, while the Quaker Committee also distributed around $50,000 worth of food, clothing and medical supplies a month throughout France. The Berlin Wall was built in only two weeks in 1961 to separate East and West Berlin. The Allied response to the blockade was the Berlin Airlift, in which the Allies supplied West Berlin by bringing in food and supplies on airplanes. So, in 1948, under the leadership of Stalin, they carried out a blockade of West Berlin with the intention of starving the western powers. On 6 April, after the sinking of the Norwegian mail steamer Mira, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Professor Koht, referring to 21 protests made to belligerents about breaches to her neutrality, made a statement about the German sinking of Norwegian ships by U-boats and aircraft. As a result, all sides wanted to make it nearly impossible for Germany to ever start a war in Europe ever again. In addition, about 45% of pig iron manufacturing had been lost, together with 40% of steel furnace capacity. During the war Britain lost many of its lucrative export markets and now confronted an annual balance of payments deficit of 1.2billion. To patrol the Mediterranean and the Red Sea access to the Indian Ocean, Britain would work together with the French, whose own navy was the world's fourth largest, and comprised a good number of modern, powerful vessels with others nearing completion. In Norway the Germans requisitioned personal property right down to woollen blankets, ski trousers and windproof jackets, and in Denmark all trade and industry of consequence was now controlled by Germans. [citation needed] On 22 January the UK ambassador was handed a note from the State Department calling the practice "wholly unwarrantable" and demanding immediate correction[citation needed]. While Denmark, the "Larder of Europe", produced massive quantities of bacon, eggs and dairy products, this was heavily dependent on imports of fertilizer from Britain. The policy of appeasement that was carried out by Britain and France is often considered to be one of the main causes of World War II and began by Germany carrying out actions against the basic terms of the Treaty of Versailles that Germany was forced to accept at the end of World War I.For example, one of the first steps Germany took was to remilitarize the Rhineland. Decrees were proclaimed to force farmers to sell their animals and existing food stores, and while in the beginning a percentage of each year's crop was negotiated as part of the armistice terms, later the seizures became much more random and all-encompassing. Nearly all of this territories were returned to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957. it was only another Nazi lie. [56] Vichy Vice-Premier Admiral Darlan declared that the Vichy merchant marine had so far brought through the blockade 7m bushels of grain, 363,000 tons of wine, 180,000 tons of peanut oil together with large amounts of fruit, sugar, cocoa, meat, fish and rum.